


The Executioner

by emungere



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakkai is a vampiric mass murderer who finds a way into modern day New York City, where he studies literature at NYU. Gojyo is the vampire hunter sent to kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Executioner

**Author's Note:**

> A fic to go with [this fabulous piece of art](http://weissvsaiyuki.livejournal.com/1998.html) by Indelicateink. 
> 
> Thanks very much to louiselux for last minute beta heroics!

Smoke swirled through the dim light of the bar's back room. Gojyo tossed his cards down and raked a pile of limp paper across the table toward him. "It's been a pleasure, gentlemen. Hope to see you again real soon." 

They'd probably try to jump him once he got outside, but whatever. He had money, and that meant a room, a decent meal, and a bath for the first time since he'd landed in this world. He didn't know how much of the paper money it would take, or how much he had, but the level of icy resentment they were directing toward him was probably a good sign. 

He stepped out into the street, cut immediately through an alley, jumped a low wall, and broke into a jog. He didn't want to kill anyone tonight, and knocking them out would be too much like work. He caught a few slurs against his name carried on the wind funneling between tall buildings, but that was all. 

The streetlights leaned closer together here. Fewer shadows for those who needed to hide their business. In the cities at home, they called him a hunter, but there was an older name for it that people still used in the countryside: shadow-watcher. He looked into the dark places as he passed, but here he saw only a few couples locked together, a man pissing against a wall, an old woman asleep in a doorway. 

He passed the mouth of the next alley and kept walking, because you didn't freeze when you were outlined against the light, not if you want to live till morning, but what he'd seen in the shadows was frozen into place behind his eyes: a young man, fine-featured, dark hair, green eyes that glowed from within. 

No one knew his name. They called him Gonou, the Scaldi word for executioner. Gojyo had been following him for six months, over the Diueliz mountains, through Scald and Sendal to a barren rock in the middle of the Singing Sea. Birds had crapped all over the stone arch by the shore, and waves had worn its base down to almost nothing. The last time Gojyo had seen him, Gonou had stepped through that arch. Of course, Gojyo had followed. He'd stepped out the other side into a new world.

He stopped just past the alley, slid his goggles over his eyes, and loosened his sword in its sheath. He waited. He heard a cut off scream and gritted his teeth. He'd heard too many of those and had never been able to save even one. This was as close as he had ever been. This time the fucker wouldn't get a chance to fade away into a patch of darkness like he'd never been there. 

Gonou exited the alley and turned left, away from Gojyo. Gojyo took a breath, drew his sword and launched himself forward. One second, he was heading dead for his target. Lights spun around him, and the next moment, he was pinned to the wall with an arm like an iron bar across his throat. 

His sword clattered to the ground. The pressure increased, and his vision narrowed to the pale face in front of him, lips and chin stained with blood. 

"Got you," Gojyo said. He couldn't get enough air for anything but a whisper. 

"Do you? That's not how it seems to me." 

Gojyo had never heard him speak before, never been close enough. He had a pleasant, light voice. It echoed the mild curiosity of his expression, which changed to wide-eyed shock as Gojyo fumbled a knife from his belt and drove it up into Gonou's belly. 

He stumbled back, and Gojyo's vision cleared as the pressure left his throat. Black stained Gonou's shirt. Gojyo rolled forward, grabbed his sword, and brought it around in a sweeping arc. 

One pale hand caught the blade. Gojyo pushed with all his strength, and Gonou clutched his stomach with one hand and the sword with the other as his vital fluids spilled out of him. Gojyo had known he was strong, but he wondered now why Gonou hadn't killed him months ago. Even now, with Gonou down and wounded, Gojyo was badly outclassed. He leaned his full weight into it, and the sword inched toward Gonou's neck. 

"Do you know how to get home without me, Gojyo?" Gonou asked. 

Gojyo didn't even know how he'd gotten here. Or where here was. They stared at each other. Slowly, the black stain grew. Gonou's hand fell away from the sword and he lay, limp and unconscious on the ground. 

Gojyo cursed, sheathed the sword, and picked him up. 

He heard a moan, and it wasn't from the creature slung over his shoulder. It came from the alley. A young man staggered out onto the street and blinked slowly at Gojyo. He swayed and caught himself against the wall. The streetlight highlighted a splash of blood on his neck. 

"Hey, uh, is that your boyfriend?" he said. "I swear I didn't know and we didn't do much anyway." 

"Just a friend," Gojyo said. 

"Then do you think I could get his number?" 

"I don't think that's a good plan. Do you have friends nearby?"

He gestured at the bar next door. "Yeah, I just came out for a second." He rubbed at his neck and frowned. "I think he bit me." 

Gojyo closed the distance between them quickly and pressed a hand to the man's neck. He mouthed the words that asshole priest had taught him silently and felt the skin knit together. "It's not bad," he said. "Go back to your friends. Or better yet, go home." He used the voice that would've set his army in motion, before Gonou had wiped out half his soldiers and scattered the rest like dust in the desert. The young man nodded jerkily and walked away. 

Gojyo found a hotel, got a room, and dumped his burden on the bed. He peeled the stained shirt up and looked at the wound. It wouldn't kill him, but all Gojyo's steel was blessed, and it would heal slowly. He cleaned it, though he didn't know if that would help or not, or even if he wanted it to help. 

Gonou opened his eyes as Gojyo wrung out a wet cloth into water already nearly black with whatever served Gonou and his kind for blood. 

"You didn't kill him," Gojyo said. "Not like you to worry about the squints." 

"The constabulary of this world do not concern me. It was you I sought to avoid."

"Fair enough. I would've found you a lot sooner with a trail of sucked corpses to follow." 

"How did you find me?" 

"Chance."

Gonou smiled up at him, teeth glinting in the sallow lamp light. "Chance is another word for providence. Perhaps we were meant to meet tonight."

The grin faded slowly, and his eyes closed. Gojyo covered him and watched him sleep. He was perfectly still, no breath or heartbeat to move his body. 

A jangle of tinny music started to play. Gojyo frowned and pulled back the blanket. The source was a device in Gonou's pocket. He'd seen people talking into them before, but he didn't know how they worked yet. He poked at it until the music stopped and almost dropped it when a woman's voice came out of it. 

"Hakkai? You there?" 

"He's asleep," Gojyo said. 

"Oh, okay. Can you tell him Brook called and our Modernism and Rhetoric class is canceled tomorrow? And also I really need his notes for Irish Lit and I'll buy him pizza if he makes me copies." 

"I'll let him know." 

"Thanks! Bye." 

Gojyo set the device aside and studied Gonou. He looked like he belonged to this world: hair cut short, thin, striped shirt replacing his leather armor. Gojyo, on the other hand, had been stopped and questioned so often that he'd learned to duck out of sight when he saw anyone in a uniform. He needed to adapt. Maybe their meeting tonight had been providence. 

Gonou would teach him about this world, and in return Gojyo would not, for the moment, lop off his head. When they got home, if they got home, it would be different, but, for now, there would have to be a truce. He didn't know how he'd get Gonou to _agree_ to a truce, but going through his pockets and stealing his money so he couldn't run off seemed like a good place to start.


End file.
